print multiple topics and copy/pasting topics

[Tech_Writer_KC]

Two questions from our support people:

1. Is there any way of selecting multiple topics to print to a PDF printer as a single PDF? They would like to be able to select multiple topics simultaneously and then print these to a PDF printer to create a single custom PDF as needed. I believe this is wanted when on-site at a customer who wishes to have a user-specific print-out of certain sections of our help.

2. They've tried copy and pasting to Word, but we are unable to copy image files (e.g. screenshots). Text comes over fine, more or less, but it doesn't seem able to grab images.

Our help is .chm help generated w/ RH7. Thanks!

[RoboColum_n_]

Not really. Printing from CHMs gives you the option to either print just the topic or all the topics in the book. You can't pick and choose. The best you can do is to generate a PDF of the topics and embed these into the CHM so your users can print them. If you could get someone to identify the ideas, this would be fairly easy to achieve.

[Tech_Writer_KC]

That's what I figured for printing, but what about copy and pasting? We have a few different image formats overall, but most of our help images are jpgs.

Is there a setting in RH that prevents images from being copied out of a CHM file? Is there anything we can do to change this behavior or get around it?

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Okay, prepare for a snarky but well meaning reply.

You asked: Is there anything we can do to change this behavior or get around it?.

The snarky answer? Yep, you don't put the images in the CHM file. You never make them available to your user. EVER! (Sorta defeats the purpose of help, no?)

The thing is, if the user wants the image and can display it on their screen, there isn't much you can do to thwart it. One of about half a million products that can capture the screen (and I mean anything on the screen) is called SnagIt. When I encounter a web site that has an image I like and I right-click to save it and get the wonderful JavaScript alert that advises I can't do that, I laugh and open SnagIt. At that point is just becomes a quest to prove them wrong.

Cheers... Rick

[Tech_Writer_KC]

Sorry for the delay, been busy.

Captiv8r, you wrote "The thing is, if the user wants the image and can display it on their screen, there isn't much you can do to thwart it."

I have no idea what you're responding to here.  ???

My question was regarding the following issue: Because our support people can't select/export specific topics to use in special customer-specific PDFs (my first question), they tried to copy and paste the desired topics into a Word document (which they can then turn into a PDF) - my second question in my original post.

The issue is that when they - our customer support staff - try to do this, not everything copies and pastes correctly. In particular, images do not seem to allow copying.

To clarify: We're NOT trying to PREVENT copy and pasting, we're trying to ENABLE/ALLOW this!

Hence me asking - what in RH and/or the CHM format prevents this, and is there any configuration or workaround that would allow us to get this to work? I have no idea what you thought I was asking or what issue you're responding to, but it doesn't sound like the issue we're facing.

Anyways, regarding this issue, would changing Help formats help? For example, if we used WebHelp instead of HTMLHelp, would our support staff be able to copy and paste topics into Word?

Thanks,

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

In re-reading the thread, it would appear I misunderstood what you were after. My bad and I apologize.

I believe when I replied to that, I was under the impression you were seeking a way to prevent users from copying images from the help.

Sorry for any misunderstanding... Rick

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[Tech_Writer_KC]

No problem, it's just frustrating as I'm getting a lot of requests for the same desired ability/feature (being able to select individual topics and export them into a single PDF).